I wonder how many tons of TNT that explosion ranked as. It was defiantly huge!
As one guy on the Youtube forum remarked Massachusetts ain’t got shit on Texas when it comes to big bangs. Tragically there is probably quite a lot of casualties, my heart goes out to them.

I think next time i do drive thou the town i will stop for food or something there.

Right now currently 100 injuries; deaths they won’t say yet. They shut off all gas in town to prevent further explosion. Apartment 50 units, 133 in nursing home and all have been evacuated (Thank God). 50-75 homes destroyed. All this stated by sheriff. It is still smoldering so they are waiting it out let it burn out. Too dangerous to send firefighters in.

The ship SS Grandcamp with2300 tons of 28% Ammonium Nitrate blew up on April 16, 1947 and leveled Texas City, TX.
Same stuff used at OK City with a diesel fuel enhancement.
Powerful stuff that is used all over the world for blasting operations.

As many have said, the father and daughter are parked at least 1/4 mile away and you can see the fire but really far off - then suddenly the explosion is so huge it rocks their vehicle - appears the Dad loses his grip on phone or video camera and you start hearing the little girl saying she can’t hear and begging over and over to her father to get them out of there. The camera is not focused or hanging down - I think the windshield may have blown out - but it is shocking the size of the blast knowing how far they were from the actual blast - I can now see why so many houses and apartments were destroyed - absolutely unreal

73
posted on 04/17/2013 10:15:52 PM PDT
by WhyisaTexasgirlinPA
(Liberals chant that ID for voting is racist, so isn't ID for purchasing a gun racist?)

Sheriff says concentrating on people, not property. Not fighting fire. Too toxic of fumes. Authorities have Cleared 8-10 blocks due to fumes , but winds may shift and will have to clear the other side.

This is why some are worried about the Keystone XL Pipeline. Have you ever heard of the Kalamazoo River tar sands oil spill from 2010 which has cost $1 billion and still is not cleaned up? Dozens of families permanently lost their homes near the formerly lovely river.

The odds though are pretty low, especially with the amount of pipeline and the few incidents we’ve had. You can never be 100% safe and, in the case of Keystone, the more independent will probably be a safer bet than the miniscule risk like you mentioned.

A shock wave travels at the speed of sound, by definition. I suppose some kind of blast front could go faster, but I think it would be extremely destructive in that case. I’m thinking they were a lot closer than they should have been.

There is an entire apartment complex where a police officer said all that remains is a shell. Two story complex. It looked much worse then the Northridge Apartment complex that was demolished back in the Northridge California earthquake.

There is no gore in it. You don’t even see the people in the auto who are filming. At about 29 seconds the big explosion happens and the flash is so large and big, along with the huge ear blowing noise. The young person in the auto cannot hear and is begging their father to get them out of there. Just get ready for the explosion at about 29 seconds into the 55 second recoding.

If you look at the location of the plant on Google satellite, it was located at the eastern edge of a narrow northern part of the small town of West. Luckily it was not in the middle of the town. There still could be a couple hundred affected. And they have to worry about the wind shift tonight with the fires. Town is south of fires. Wind is shifting in a few hours.

The blast wave, depending on the size of the blast, can travel much faster then the speed of sound. And this was one big blast. I’d said about the size of a tactical nuke, 1 or 2 kilotons, so I think it is a safe bet that the blast wave exceeded the speed of sound.

Or was it ammonium nitrate? A fire near a large pile of ammonium nitrate is a recipe for this sort of event. Others have mentioned the 1947 Texas City Disaster, which had a yield estimated at 2.7 to 3.2 kt.

The blast wave, depending on the size of the blast, can travel much faster then the speed of sound. And this was one big blast. Id said about the size of a tactical nuke, 1 or 2 kilotons, so I think it is a safe bet that the blast wave exceeded the speed of sound.

Well, no. Technically, the speed of sound (in any given material) IS the maximum (and minimum also) speed of a blast wave in that substance. Now, a bigger (faster or “sharper”) blast will create a larger pressure differential across that blast wave, but the speed of its arrival is the same in the same air conditions everywhere. A slowly expanding blast - like from a fire or burning of gasoline - will more slowly “ramp up” the pressure wave than a rapid explosion. But both travel at the same speed through air.

The shock wave going through rock is faster than that through dirt, faster in dirt than water, and all dense materials are much faster than air. So you would have seen the light waves - arriving at the speed of light - then felt the ground move, then feel the air blast.

99
posted on 04/17/2013 11:07:42 PM PDT
by Robert A. Cook, PE
(I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)

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